Preparation and Analysis of Imine-Conjugate Amoxicillin-Chitosan Hydrogels for Wound Care Applications

Abstract

In the past decade, research has shown the effectiveness of biopolymers for medical applications such as wound dressing, suturing, promoting cell proliferation, and controlled drug administration (Baranwal et al., 2022). Chitosan is a natural biopolymer of high functionality that is comprised of repeating β-(1,4)-2-amino-D-glucose and β-(1,4)-2-acetamido-D-glucose units that are linked by 1,4-β-glycosidic bonds. Chitosan is a highly biocompatible, cost effective, and versatile biopolymer that has merit in several medical applications, including drug delivery hydrogels (Nicolle et al., 2021). Due to chitosan’s large number of functional groups, it is possible to modify the polymer with antibiotic and therapeutic compounds through a reversible mechanism. This study explores the effectiveness of chitosan modification for drug delivery in wound care. Chitosan was modified at primary alcohol groups with primary-amine-containing drugs, which includes many antibiotics like amoxicillin. This allows drug release at the wound site for therapeutic effects. The functionalized chitosan was then used to produce innately antibacterial hydrogels, which were compared to traditional antibiotic-loaded, chitosan-based hydrogels. Drug release rates of the hydrogels were analyzed via UV-Vis spectroscopy and antimicrobial studies. It is anticipated that the resulting innately antibacterial hydrogels have the capacity to be used in several clinical applications